His efforts drew praise from Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022, who called Wait a “white hat hacker.”

This is textbook black hat. White hat hackers are usually pen testers hired by the company in question. Black hat does it to seek some kind of gain or do some kind of harm. The goal here was obvious, especially since he literally stated a "black hat" goal.

His conviction comes after a jury in 2024 found a former Milwaukee election official guilty of misconduct in office after she obtained three military absentee ballots using fake names and Social Security numbers in 2022. Like Wait, Kimberly Zapata argued that she was trying to expose vulnerabilities in the state’s election system

And I was testing the system when I stole all that jewelery at the store, officer! See? Clearly the system failed.

It's sad that some people definitely believe this.